Escape to close /btw response view kills the focused background agent
Summary
Pressing Escape to dismiss the /btw response view kills the running background agent the view was focused on. Escape is also the only apparent way to close that view, so checking on a background agent's status reliably terminates it.
Environment
- Claude Code v2.1.220 (CLI, terminal)
- Windows 11 Home 10.0.26200
- Git Bash / PowerShell host terminal
Steps to reproduce
- Have the main conversation launch a background agent (Agent tool with
run_in_background) — in my case a long-runninggeneral-purposesubagent. - While it runs, navigate to the agent and ask its status with the
/btwcommand. - The agent answers in the
/btwwindow/overlay. - Press Escape to close the window (no other close affordance is offered).
Expected
Escape dismisses the /btw view and returns to the main conversation; the background agent keeps running.
Actual
The background agent is killed. The main conversation receives a task notification with status: killed / "was stopped by user". No confirmation prompt is shown before the kill.
Impact
Lost two long-running Opus agents mid-task (each several minutes in, doing multi-file work) just by checking their status. The kill is silent from the user's perspective — it looks like the overlay simply closed.
Suggested fix
Either dismiss the overlay on Escape without propagating a kill to the focused agent, or add an explicit close key/affordance distinct from Escape, or prompt for confirmation before killing a running agent from that view.